THE MEDIA BUSINESS; Lorimar Joins Thames to Unmask 'Jack the Ripper'

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A co-production arrangement by CBS, Lorimar Television and Great Britain's Thames Television - the first between Thames and a commercial American television producer -will bring an international audience to the latest unmasking of the world's best-known unknown killer, Jack the Ripper.

Thames Television has produced many programs seen on American commercial and public television, including such disparate fare as ''The World at War,'' ''Riley, Ace of Spies'' and ''The Benny Hill Show.''

Its programs have also served as the models for long-run American sitcoms. ''Three's Company,'' for example, was based on the Thames series, ''Man About the House.'' Thames gets a hefty share of the syndication income from that American show, said Roy Addison, a Thames spokesman. $9.6 Million Production What distinguishes ''Jack the Ripper'' from previous projects is that Thames co-produced the four-hour mini-series with Lorimar. Last year, CBS bought ''Jack the Ripper'' for $4.25 million; the total cost of production was about $9.6 million, Mr. Addison said.

''Jack the Ripper'' will be broadcast on CBS on Oct. 21 and 23; it will appear a week earlier on Britain's ITV.

The ''Ripper'' script was written by David Wickes and Derek Marlowe. Mr. Wickes, by no means the only Briton obsessed with the 1888 murders, began his research on Jack the Ripper in 1976. His work intensified when he gained access to files at Scotland Yard that were only recently declassified.

Thames had already begun shooting a low-budget, three-hour ''Ripper'' movie when it struck a deal last year with Lorimar. Behind that deal was Mr. Marlowe, who had written ''The Two Mrs. Grenvilles,'' a hugely successful Lorimar mini-series. A Weekend Deal

''We have never done a co-production with American commercial television, but we knew we needed one for this project,'' Mr. Addison said.

Leslie Moonves, executive vice president for creative affairs at Lorimar, said the company learned about the ''Ripper'' script about a year ago and approached CBS. ''CBS said, 'go ahead if you can get a major star,' '' he said. ''They had already begun shooting, and we literally had the weekend to get an agreement, or the deal was off.''

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Once Michael Caine had signed on to play Inspector Frederick Abberline, who led the investigation into the murders, ''Jack the Ripper'' was transformed from a low-budget film to a mini-series - albeit a comparatively short one - in the glittering Hollywood tradition. It also stars Armand Assante as the American actor Richard Mansfield, and Jane Seymour, who is mini-series royalty.

Lorimar shared equally with Thames on creative as well as financial decisions, including casting and work on the script. Mr. Moonves said the deal was unusual not only because of the co-production arrangement, but because it was one of the few times that a production was started by a European company and then came to America. No Financial Risk

Mr. Moonves said the mini-series' cost was ''high, though not extraordinarily high,'' but its syndication prospects were so strong that ''we were not at financial risk at all.''

The production is not the only intriguing aspect of ''Jack the Ripper.'' Apparently anxious to protect himself from skeptics likely to challenge the ''discovery'' of the Ripper's identity, Mr. Wickes created four different endings, only one of which represents the unmasking of the suspect he believes to be the true Ripper. Not even Mr. Caine will know which is the real ending until it is shown - although intrepid American Ripperologists will have the option of finding out when the conclusion is broadcast in Britain on Oct. 18.

Thames first made its presence known to American television viewers in 1976, when it took over Channel 9 in New York for a week and broadcast only its own shows. Now, it has infiltrated American television about as heavily as the BBC.

Thames and Lorimar are splitting the syndication rights to ''Jack the Ripper,'' with Lorimar getting the North American rights and Thames everywhere else.

Lorimar and Thames have no other joint projects in the works, but Mr. Moonves is enthusiastic another venture. ''We now know each other quite well, now,'' he said. ''It was a real learning process, and I'd do it again in a minute.''

A version of this article appears in print on September 12, 1988, on Page D00006 of the National edition with the headline: THE MEDIA BUSINESS; Lorimar Joins Thames to Unmask 'Jack the Ripper'. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe